24 November 2011

1st (Royal) Dragoons 1880-1906


This post will look at numbering in the 1st (Royal) Dragoons. The information on this post has been compiled as a result of examining service records in WO 97, WO 363 and WO 364.  All of these series are now online via subscription or pay per view.

2035 William Henry Jeffrey joined on 23rd April 1880
2076 Patrick McCarthy joined on 13th January 1881
2120 Edwin Alfred Harris joined on 19th November 1882
2135 Francis Oxley joined on 6th January 1883
2394 Francis William Henry Potter joined on 29th March 1884
2560 James Miller joined on 16th Janaury 1885
2720 Robert Nicholson joined on 1st April 1886
2832 John Milligan joined on 1st January 1887
2947 John Spencer joined on 16th April 1888
3163 Thomas Singleton joined on 13th May 1889
3215 Spencer George Gill joined on 3rd January 1890
3374 Charles Smith Bond joined on 2nd July 1891
3472 Robert Hide joined on 18th March 1892
3595 Joseph Murphy joined on 4th April 1893
3721 Henry Edward John Edgington joined on 18th January 1894
3849 Henry Clue joined on 29th January 1895
3967 Tom May joined on 27th February 1896
4048 John Edwin Barker joined on 23rd January 1897
4280 Harry Hart joined on 20th June 1898
4390 Alfred Bearman joined on 27th January 1899
4664 Walter Bush joined on 5th March 1900
5171 George Alfred Gatland joined on 24th July 1901
5573 Thomas Ernest Bishop joined on 29th March 1902
5705 Frank Bonnet joined on 31st October 1903
5714 Paul Ensell joined on 1st May 1904
5826 William Niven joined on 7th September 1905
5879 John Burns joined on 5th September 1906

Army Order 289 of December 1906 changed the numbering as far as cavalry of the line was concerned.

Prior to this Army Order, all cavalry regiments had numbered individually by regiments. Now, line cavalry and household cavalry were differentiated, and each corps of line cavalry was to use a separate number series extending to 49,999.  So beware, a line cavalryman with the 1st (Royal) Dragoons number 2035 could be William Jeffrey (above) who joined in 1880 or it could be a man from any one of the Corps of Dragoons regiments who joined up in May 1908.

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